Former teacher pleads no contest to sex with minor

A former Port St. Lucie High School teacher has opted to forgo a trial and will, instead, plead no contest to charges of having sex with a minor. She will find out in March how much prison time – up to 10 years – she’ll serve.

Former chemistry teacher Tiffany Geliga, 36, of the 1300 block of SE Palm Beach Rd., Port St. Lucie, faces as many as 10 years in prison and no limit to probation, according to court records. She entered a plea of no contest to two counts of sexual assault last week.

As part of the plea deal, Geliga will surrender her teaching license and has promised to refrain from contacting the 17-year-old student whom she had been tutoring.

According to police, Geliga had sex with the teenager twice –in a vehicle parked on a wooded lot in her neighborhood. The arrest report, issued in May 2017, noted that the teen’s mother contacted the school principal after discovering numerous texts exchanged between her son and Geliga.

The call set off an investigation within the school’s administration that led to contact with the Port St. Lucie Police Department, which began its own investigation.

Geliga was tutoring the teen, according to the arrest report. She gave the teen her cellphone number under the context of making contact for tutoring purposes.

The report outlines that the teen wanted to send a picture of himself to a girl who was standing with Geliga but didn’t have the girl’s number. So, he sent the photo to Geliga’s number, asking her to share it with the female student.

From there, according to the report, Geliga and the teen began exchange texts – the content of the messages were not included in the report. Over the course of the texting, Geliga and the teen agreed to meet for sex, the report states.

As part of the investigation, authorities set up a controlled called between the teen and Geliga. During that call, Geliga confirmed the two had indeed had sex on multiple occasions, the report states.

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